How would you react if foreign people you have never seen or heard of before started claiming your land for their own? The Indians faced this exact question when the European explorers started to explore the Americas. The Native Americans reacted with an array of emotions and therefore a wide variety of solutions. Fear, superiority, kindness, and even worship were some of these feelings, and even though they are vastly different from one another, they all can be used to describe how different groups of Indians dealt with the Spaniards exploring North America. In The Journey of Cabeza de Vaca: His Account of the Disastrous First European Exploration of the American Southwest, Cabeza de Vaca describes his interactions with various tribes of Indians
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They decided to deal with that fear by conquering the source of that trepidation, the explorers. Throughout Cabeza de Vaca’s journey he experiences many degrees of animosity from the Native Americans, such as fleeing, fighting, and even forcing the Spaniards to work as slaves. In The Journey of Cabeza de Vaca: His Account of the Disastrous First European Exploration of the American Southwest, Cabeza de Vaca describes the Indians’ treatment of the Spaniards in slavery, Cabeza de Vaca states that, “Not content with frequently buffeting them, striking them with sticks, and pulling out their beards for amusement, they killed three of the six for only going from one house to another” (77). Some Native Americans chose to deal with their fear by forcing the Spaniards into slavery and then by treating them cruelly just because they could; while, others chose to either run away from the starving explorers or to attack them with bows and arrows. All three of these scenarios did not bode well for the European adventurers, but these were some of the situations that the explorers faced when coming to the …show more content…
Some Native Americans chose to attack the explorers or to treat them as slaves, while others chose to provide them with food, shelter, and to integrate them into their beliefs. Even though the feelings of hostility and kindness are very different, these feelings, and therefore how the Spaniards were treated, originated from one common source, fear. It is the fear of the unknown that caused the Indians to handle the Spaniards presence differently. The Native Americans had probably never faced a people that were drastically different from their own and could not come up with a good way to handle the situation, creating a multitude of situations. Though there were many different ways of dealing with the explorers, the feelings of hostility, superiority, kindness, and reverence all stemmed from one common feeling, fear. The Indians’ fear of the unknown resulted in many different reactions to the Spaniards, but these responses were attempts to fit the Spaniards into the Indians’ already existing
They decided to deal with that fear by conquering the source of that trepidation, the explorers. Throughout Cabeza de Vaca’s journey he experiences many degrees of animosity from the Native Americans, such as fleeing, fighting, and even forcing the Spaniards to work as slaves. In The Journey of Cabeza de Vaca: His Account of the Disastrous First European Exploration of the American Southwest, Cabeza de Vaca describes the Indians’ treatment of the Spaniards in slavery, Cabeza de Vaca states that, “Not content with frequently buffeting them, striking them with sticks, and pulling out their beards for amusement, they killed three of the six for only going from one house to another” (77). Some Native Americans chose to deal with their fear by forcing the Spaniards into slavery and then by treating them cruelly just because they could; while, others chose to either run away from the starving explorers or to attack them with bows and arrows. All three of these scenarios did not bode well for the European adventurers, but these were some of the situations that the explorers faced when coming to the …show more content…
Some Native Americans chose to attack the explorers or to treat them as slaves, while others chose to provide them with food, shelter, and to integrate them into their beliefs. Even though the feelings of hostility and kindness are very different, these feelings, and therefore how the Spaniards were treated, originated from one common source, fear. It is the fear of the unknown that caused the Indians to handle the Spaniards presence differently. The Native Americans had probably never faced a people that were drastically different from their own and could not come up with a good way to handle the situation, creating a multitude of situations. Though there were many different ways of dealing with the explorers, the feelings of hostility, superiority, kindness, and reverence all stemmed from one common feeling, fear. The Indians’ fear of the unknown resulted in many different reactions to the Spaniards, but these responses were attempts to fit the Spaniards into the Indians’ already existing